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The
following article was based on interviews with a Coast Guard World War II
combat veteran, Robert L. Resnick, who served aboard a Coast Guard-manned
LST during the invasion of Iwo Jima.

Please
note that his claim regarding the origin of the flags raised on Mount
Suribachi remain unsubstantiated and conflict with U.S. Marine Corps
accounts.

BOCA
RATON, Fla. — In the shadow of Mt. Suribachi, a young quartermaster
patrols the deck of LST-758. The year is 1945. Naval guns
thunder and the buzz of bullets punctuates the air as a bloody battle rages
on Iwo Jima.

“Men were dying by the
score. I watched it in utter sadness and terror for them,” said
Robert L. Resnick, 82, a Coast Guard veteran and quartermaster on LST-758,
beached off the island that historic day. “I thought what a horrible
thing is happening. I was an eyewitness to the sad, horrible day.It was a slaughter, a horrible thing right on the beach.”

It was a day that has
become the key symbol of the Marine Corps. Resnick was much more than
a witness. Shortly after the tide turned in that bloody battle, he
provided the stars and stripes and staff that enabled U.S. Marines to plant
the American flag on the island, a moment captured on film and relived for
generations to come.

Vivid
Memories 60 Years Later

Six decades later, the Boca
Raton resident vividly recalls the sights and sounds of his historic voyage
to Iwo Jima. Ira Hayes, a Native American from Arizona, befriended
him. Resnick mimics the rat-tat-tat of staccato gunfire, as he describes the
odor of gunfire that fateful day.

“We were scared,”
he said, his voice reaching a high pitch as he recounts the mayhem and fear.
He recalls the close quarters on his 329-foot LST, a light surface transport
ship. “But we didn’t mind, we were committed. Absolutely
committed.”

“We were young and
impassioned, what can I say?” said Resnick.

Resnick, who started
an elastics for children’s wear business 63 years ago, joined the Coast
Guard in 1944. A younger brother soon joined the Army.

“We both wanted to do our
part,” he said.

A crisp black and white
photo on his mantel depicts his innocence and youth circa 1940s (see photos
below). Resnick sports a wide smile in his dark navy, mounted patrol
shore uniform. A darker photo of the volcanic island of Iwo Jima hangs
outside his home office. Its pork chop shape shows the overhang of Mt.
Suribachi where LST-758 was beached, February 23, 1945. Resnick is
also proud of the copy he has of the original invasion plans as penned in
October 1944.

Iwo Jima was one of the
bloodiest battles of World War II and an American victory that serves as a
symbol of the treacherous Pacific conflict. Part of the Volcano
Islands, Iwo Jima is about 700 miles south of Tokyo, and the first part of
Japan that Allied troops invaded. Americans coveted three airstrips
for long-range bombing raids on Tokyo and for the soon-to-come invasion of
Okinawa. Mt. Surabachi, a 550-foot inactive volcano at the island’s
southern tip, was immortalized when five Marines and a Navy corpsman raised
the flag on the fifth day of the raging battle.The iconic photograph shot by Associated Press photographer Joe
Rosenthal failed to tell the story of the Coast Guard’s connection.
Nevertheless, thanks to Resnick, we now have the rest of the story.

On Iwo Jima, more than
22,000 Japanese soldiers defended the island during the 36-day battle
attacked by three Marine divisions.

“Nearly
60 years ago, this spot was filled with agony,” said Resnick, tapping his
thin finger on the photo.

“I
was a 23-year-old kid born and raised in Bronx, N.Y.,” said Resnick.
“No young man raised during the Depression whose thoughts were of basic
survival, education and betterment of his life was prepared for this type of
carnage. We were never taught to kill, to hate or how to fight.
We were only thinking about food, had great consideration of our friends and
our commitments. We were able in those days to enjoy life without the
luxuries.”

That fact served him well
as he crammed his gear into his hammock with one man above and one below,
sailing in cramped quarters with dozens of Marines and other Coasties.

His memories dart back
across the decades. He talks of tank turrets jutting over the blackened
sands pocked with caves. The island was devoid of foliage, a stark place for
a bloody battle.

Marine
Requests A Flag

While on watch, Resnick was
in charge of the bridge waiting for orders to debark, on the morning of
February 23, 1945.Just after
11:15 a.m., a helmeted young Marine with dark sideburns came aboard LST-758.
Resnick received the call from the bow and was told a Marine wished to get a
flag to raise on the summit of the volcano.

“I said send him up!”
said Resnick.

Renee Gagnon, now
immortalized by Rosenthal’s image, was the Marine requesting the flag with
just a hint of a New England accent in his voice. Resnick recalls
climbing the 10-foot steel ladder to the signal bridge. Rummaging around in
the wooden bunting box, he worked his way toward the bottom and felt a large
flag, still folded.A signalman
confronted Resnick.

“He wanted to know on
whose authority I was giving the flag away,” Resnick said.Resnick climbed up to the flying bridge, his nose aligned with the
heels of the ship’s commanding officer, LT Felix J. Molenda, as he got to
the top rung. It was from there he presented his case.
Preoccupied with reprimanding a junior officer, the skipper stammered out,
“Uh, very well.”

Resnick scampered down the
ladder to the signal bridge and then back down to the bridge, where he
handed the Marine the flag. Gagnon then asked for a 20-30 foot pipe as
a substitute. Gagnon headed down to the Tank Deck, where he was given
a 21-foot galvanized steel steamfitter’s pipe. It weighed more than
150 pounds, Resnick said.Gagnon
slung it over his left shoulder, tucked Resnick’s flag under his right
arm, and headed up the volcano as Resnick stood on the deck watching history
unfold.

“Renee Gagnon struggled
mightily but the sand at the base of the volcano was too soft and Gagnon
barely made any headway,” notes Resnick. “Then he dropped the pole
and pulled it by its nose.Evidently,
he called up to the summit and two other Marines shouldered the pipe and
Gagnon carried the flag the rest of the way up.”

Resnick said it was
probably a 20-minute journey.

Beached under the precipice
of Mt. Surabachi, Resnick’s ship lost track of the men as Mt. Surabachi
obstructed their view.As
LST-758 began leaving the beach in reverse, Resnick heard, “a tremendous
and sudden ovation from every man on the beach.”

“There was a whooping and
hollering — a tremendous cheer as the flag went up,” said Resnick.
“Every ship tooted its horn,” he said. “The memory is very clear
and compounded by great sentiment and great apprehension as I recall the
sites of death,” said Resnick.

Seeing
The Famous Photo

Ira
Hayes was one of the two Marines that helped shoulder the pipe.
Resnick had met Hayes in Saipan about a week prior.

“I thought he was a
decent fellow and we talked about many things,” said Resnick. Three
days after the two met, Hayes waited for Resnick as he came off watch at
0800.

“C’mon, I’ll buy ya
breakfast,” said Resnick to Hayes. The cook, Willy Howard, came off
duty from the galley and the three went down below. Willy had just
baked a loaf of bread, which he brought out.

“With great arrogance, a
large flour weevil marched out of the bread,” to the disbelief of the
trio, said Resnick. “Willy splattered the bug with his moccasin and
Ira calmly sliced off a hunk,” says Resnick who recalls the incident with
slight disgust. “He told me, you were never raised on a reservation,
Bob…I’ll never forget that,” Resnick said.

Hayes was a swarthy, Pima
Indian about the same height as Resnick. He was very devoted to his
fellow Marines, although Resnick and he became good friends in the week it
took to transit the Pacific Ocean toward Iwo Jima. “And as he left
the vessel, he gave me his rain poncho. I treasured it for 15 years
until my house burned down,” said Resnick.

It wasn’t until months
later that he finally saw the AP photograph of Iwo Jima.

“We didn’t have TV, or The
New York Times, but my father saved the picture to show me,” he said.
Resnick was not on the summit the day it was shot, and never had an image in
his mind’s eye until he saw the photo.

Four days prior to the flag
incident, Resnick sustained a facial wound for what he laughingly calls,
“getting shot in the chinstrap.”Taking a sounding, he wore his helmet without buckling it. The
strap dangled on the left side of his face when he suddenly felt a
tremendous sting on the right side of his face. “I never knew what
it was,” said Resnick. “Major Wann, a Marine, asked what happened to
you? You’re bleeding like a pig.”

Resnick looked down and saw
blood all over the life jacket he was ordered to wear while remaining at
General Quarters alert.

“I got permission to
leave my post and see the Pharmacist’s Mate in Sick Bay,” said Resnick.
“He couldn’t staunch the bleeding so he used a styptic pencil and
suggested stitches, but initially, I declined.” Eventually, he persuaded
Resnick that he was a fine seamstress. The scar remains just inside
Resnick’s sideburn and he pats it reassuringly.

“Major Wann said,
‘You’re entitled to a Purple Heart, son. You were shot.’ But we
were fighting a war; I was busy,” said Resnick, who never filed the
paperwork.

Front
Seat To History

After the war, Resnick went
on to manufacture the hair for Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls and dresses for
the famed Cabbage Patch doll.Gaining
unusual perspective, his memories are now framed by his historic feat 60
years ago.

The inspiration that flag
gave 70,000 men wasn’t apparent to Resnick until he attended a Fifth
Marine Convention in West Palm Beach, Fla. in August 2001.

“I wanted to see if any
of the men I remembered would be there,” he said. “War makes for
strange bedfellows and we bonded. This is the group that made
history,” he said. “They were the most famous Marine division and
my ship took them in.” “Looking back, I had a front seat to the
history of this nation,” said Resnick, his voice cracking just a bit.
“I am now very proud but I never thought of it that way in those days.”

A former Marine from Texas
in his late seventies offered to show Resnick around the convention.
The two struck up a conversation and Resnick told him about the flag.
“You’re the guy, he asked? My whole life I’ve been wondering
where that flag came from.” Then he called over a group of 35-40
Marines.

Word sped through the
place.

A portly Marine bellowed,
“Are you so damn dumb that you mean to tell me, that you don’t realize
that you won that battle single-handedly?”

Resnick laughed. He
said he was pleased to feel part of the group, leaving word on the bulletin
board that he lived in Boca Raton with his phone number. That night,
his phone rang at 11:30 p.m. jarring him awake. A Navy corpsman who
had tended the 5th Marine Division during the war, was on the other end.
He told me, “I was off the starboard bow of your ship and saw the Marine
come out with a pipe on his shoulder and a flag under his arm and I watched
him struggle up the mountain,” Resnick said.

For decades, Resnick kept
his story quiet, unsure of what to say. A successful businessman, he
now frames his life by his involvement in World War II. A father of
two and grandfather of three, his own grandson chided him for keeping silent
all these years..

“It never occurred to me
to seek glory for Bob Resnick,” he said. “But the 779 kept
receiving credit for supplying the flag and I wanted to set things right.”

As television anchors and
filmmakers call hoping to capture the Coast Guard connection to Iwo Jima,
Resnick said he feels very proud. In 2001, the president of the fifth
Marine division made Resnick an honorary member. “It made me feel
wonderful. They made me feel like part of the group. As they
honored me, a couple of the guys started crying. I cried right along
with them,” said Resnick.

This article appeared in
the Coast Guard's The Reservist Magazine, Volume 51, Issue 6.